Reviews - Things in Nature Merely Grow

246 reviews for:

Things in Nature Merely Grow

Yiyun Li

4.52 AVERAGE

vsteffes's review against another edition

4.0

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

asiacantread's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

This is one of the most beautiful and difficult reflections on grief that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. I think I enjoy the fact that it validates a lot of feelings I’ve had about suicide, grief, and death but have never been able to feel brave enough to accept. I especially liked the line “Some consolations are strictly and purely for the consoles themselves.” This sentence captured what often makes me so uncomfortable about the average approach to grief or the griefing. I also use griefing for lack of a better term because this book makes clear that grief is only a word and doesn’t fully encompass or explain the experience. There is a tender honesty in which this book is written that ultimately led me to feel that it is hopeful if that there is hope in the fact that we have the option to make the decisions that we make and that a livable life and undefined, elusive thing that can exist in both the best and worst circumstances and will likely exist in both at some point in everyone’s life. I’m grateful to have read this book.